This d3.js visualization was created by Mason Leon as an assignment for CS 7250 S21 Information Visualization: Theory and Applications , taught by Prof. Cody Dunne , Data Visualization @ Khoury , Northeastern University .
As container carriers have consolidated services through mergers, acquisitions, and alliance restructuring, the number of carrier customers hailing the Massachusets Port Authority have waxed and waned
over the past few years.
The connectivity of a port often is derived from the distinct service pairings to other ports provided by ocean carrier and alliance group.
Although alliances largely offer cost-savings for the carrier, they can provide some benefits to the the shipper.
However, with fewer unique carriers and services limited to a select group of alliance pairings, customer choice is limited.
This type of information is important to monitor for economic development purposes such as marketing the services available to the region for potential shippers or for supply chain managers seeking alternative routings from the congested NY/NJ gateway.
The dataset used in the visualization below was derived from MassPort Annual Financial Reports and combined with other information relating to milestones in major global container carrier alliance formation.
The data was shaped into a "wide" format to allow for use of a stacked bar chart.
This dataset consists of continuous quarterly information, categorical information representing the alliance, and numerical quanitiative data for the carrier counts per alliance.
I utilized this chart type because it provides a clear view of the total number of unique carriers while also demonstrating the sizes and names of the alliance sub groupings with a color channel and interaction event.
The user may inspect a sub element of each quarter to examine the number of carriers participating in that alliance.